There is an amazing thrill to doing that “new thing.” I remember the first time I stepped on stage, the first time I kissed a boy, the first time I kissed a girl, the first time I kissed someone’s boots, the first time I was spanked to tears…

Few of us are able to live an openly kinky lifestyle around the clock and under all circumstances. The pressures of what many call “vanilla” life, but what I prefer to refer to as the “Default World”, are overwhelming at times.

Getting over a master is never easy. One must first decide they’re ready to move on, and then set their mind and mood for catharsis and deprogramming. Yes, we said deprogramming. Read on to understand why.

Among the more persistent illusions non-kink identified people have about the pervert milieu is that we kinksters live in some sort of rarified place where protocols reign supreme, and those who would call themselves masters lounge about being waited on by doting droves of swooning slaves.

My journey was not the most common, but I believe it made me the best I can be. It was an odd progression of finding my own way early on, dotted with self-education, and topped off with a healthy dose of rigid, formal education.

I hate negotiation for scenes. Seriously. Way to just suck all of the magic and romance and mystery and spontaneity out of what is supposed to be a sexual act. Yeah, yeah. I know it’s all supposed to be consensual and shit. But this is ridiculous. “May I?’ “Is this OK?” “Do you mind if we…” I mean, fuck.

The rituals and emotional trips and triggers of BDSM have deep resonance for some, and not for others. And it is all good, so long as, when you come together to play, you are all reading the same fucking playbook.

Kinksters talk quite a bit about the inherent risk of bondage and other kinky play. They learn the proper procedure, to mitigate that risk — but rarely do you hear about the stark reality that no matter what precautions you take or how safe you play, people can still get hurt.

People are often curious as to why a particular play-style, pervy activity or kind of kink appeals while others leave you cold. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’ll tell you about why I so love bottoming to rope bondage.

Stepping out into the world of dating at the age of 18 is scary enough without adding the worry that your kinks will make people think you're a freak. Mr. Sexsmith offers some sage advice on coming to terms with who you are and building up the courage to step off the dating curb.

There is no one rulebook for how to do this thing we call BDSM, Power-Exchange, Master/Slave relationships, etc., etc. One of the things I most enjoy about perverts is our limitless capacity to forge our own damn path, thank you very much! I’ve done a lot of weed-whacking through the jungles of kink in order to find ways that work for me.

Winter Solstice, meet your kink. A dendrophiliac is a person who is attracted to trees, who has romantic, sensual, sexual encounters with the forest. So, in this (most wonderful) time of year, when the evergreen tree becomes a decorated centerpiece of the Holiday Season, why not draw our attention to those who have a very personal relationship to trees?

There is no one rulebook for how to do this thing we call BDSM, Power-Exchange, Master/Slave relationships, etc., etc. One of the things I most enjoy about perverts is our limitless capacity to forge our own damn path, thank you very much! I’ve done a lot of weed-whacking through the jungles of kink in order to find ways that work for me.

When you look at “Power Exchange” relationships – that is, relationships that are based on someone giving over control of some facet (or all aspects!) of their lives to another person – it seems obvious whose needs, wants and desires come first. The master over the slave, the dominant over the submissive, top over the bottom.

When you find it, the desire to jump into the deep end of the BDSM pool can be irresistible. The excitement of new found friends, playmates and activities can drive a submissive off track and into dangerous situations for mind, body and soul. In this letter to my submissive friends, I offer some advice to avoid the pitfalls during your adventures.

Just a stone’s throw and a short town car ride away from the Upper East Side, hides an elegant gem of a kinky pleasure retreat called The Iron Bell Academy. It’s a private membership based dungeon society catering to the aesthetically rigorous bondage and BDSM aficionado.

Halloween is without question the best of all possible holidays…there’s no family BS, no gift guilt, just tricks, treats and terror. But let’s face it…trying to squeeze something sexy out of it is like trying to take candy from Rosemary’s Baby.

Queer porn director, producer, and performer Courtney Trouble has spent the last ten years changing the face of the porn industry with her sites No Fauxxx and Queer Porn TV that feature performers of all ethnicities, body types, genders, and sexual orientations coming together in one hot, steamy sex pile. Trouble is breaking new ground by declaring today International Fisting Day.

From an innocent tickle and slap on the ass to whips and chains or masters and slaves, the world of kink and BDSM is hardly the same for everybody involved. But what all kinky folk do have in common is the desire for what's at the heart of all kinky activity: creative sexual expression.

As kinky folks, most of us have heard of the risks associated with certain activities we like: rope cuts off circulation, bruises invite suspicion and speculation, infected wounds or bites just plain suck and breath play can flat out be deadly... but there's more.

Seeking new connections through kinky social networking sites can be fraught with drama, dissatisfaction and potentially danger. Keeping a few important tips in mind can help improve your experience and find what you're really looking for.

You know the phrase, “Taken out of context, I must seem so strange?” That goes double for pulling random bits of erotic conversation, texted or otherwise, and analyzing them as if they told a whole story. Without the motivation of the person sending and receiving them, you really don’t know anything.

You meet someone new and you wonder...is he kinky? Will he run screaming into the night when I let slip my taste for being tied up? Now is not the time to panic, now is the time to sit back and carefully consider how to introduce your kink to someone you think is vanilla.

You've made the decision to take the plunge: you're going to your first kinky party. Half of what you hear is talk about how important etiquette is, and the other half is about how you should just relax and be yourself. How do you manage to relax enough to "be yourself" when there are so many rules? Read on for your survival guide.

Imagine a weekend at the friendliest place on earth, with the nicest people, who are sharing and playing well with each other. Now remove the acoustic guitar and accompanying folk music from that image — and replace it with hemp products. In this case hemp is used for ropes and tying, not smoking, because we’re at ShibariCon .

Aftercare is a much debated topic among those who are into the rough and tumble play of BDSM. Whose responsible, what is needed and how long it should last are often discussed, but with the submissive in mind. Dominant aftercare is a phrase you almost never hear.

When the details of one's kinky life become public, it can be embarrassing, to say the least. But for some, it can lead to more dire consequences—loss of a job or place to live. Minority groups are protected from this kind of discrimination. But what about kinksters? Do they deserve the same protection from discrimination because they do things others consider objectionable?

Midori unleashes her alter ego, a psychotic clown nurse, clad in a white leather-hood with stitched up mouth, upon the party-goers at the Japan Fetish Ball, an annual extravaganza hosted by the Tokyo Kink Society.

In the best of all possible worlds, we could do whatever we want, with whomever we want, whenever we want... but for those of us who live in the real world, having sex can be a process of negotiation—especially when the real world includes sharing your living quarters with others.

I’ve already told you about the purple stripes that crisscrossed my backside after my first flogging. They were thick and wide as the suede strips of the flogger, and concentrated on the roundest part of my ass.

The human appetite is a curious thing. For those with a fetish for cannibalism, the term, "Eat me," carries heady connotations. Keeping in the holiday spirit, as part of the Appetites Project, we offer up a very different kind of Thanksgiving feast. Bon(e) Appetit!

I am surrounded by male energy. To be clear: I am surrounded by hot guys, lubed up in skimpy rubber outfits. It’s the 14th annual Mr. International Rubber (MIR), a skin-tight fetish event in Chicago, that draws rubber-boys from all over the world.

You’ve heard about kinky weekend events, haven’t you? Maybe it was someone’s elated Facebook post, or that friend who breathlessly told tales of her wild, naughty adventures? Perhaps you’d read a local newspaper article decrying the shocking and amoral activities, full of scantily clad women with whips and chains, happening down at a local convention center. You want to go, don’t you?

Welcome to Wicked Grounds—America’s singular adults-only kinky café. It also happens to be my one of my top two favorite cafés in San Francisco. You’ll often find me there, writing or hanging out with other sexy freaks. The coffee’s superb, Wi-Fi’s free, no children are allowed (except those adults enjoying age play), and I can say and do most anything. What’s not to love?

In the first installment of this interview, we met up with Molly Ren, who has a very special relationship with food as it relates to sex. While many foods are known to function as aphrodisiacs, for Ren and others who share this fetish, it is the act of eating and feeding, rather than the food itself, that leads to the ultimate gratification.

Last week, we launched The Appetites Project with Liz Langley's feature, “I Eat, Therefore, I Am.” In this installment of the SexIs feederism series, The Beautiful Kind talks one-on-one with a practitioner of the fetish, Molly Ren.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Then again, innovation is always propelling us forward into realities we couldn’t possibly have imagined. The concept of orgasm on demand has been around for a long time, but how close are we to that reality?

Most of us have some kind of issues involving food and many are forever trying to lose weight thinking it will help achieve sexiness, so there’s probably nothing more socially subversive you could do in America in 2010 than to gain weight on purpose.

Things that look human but aren’t, are creepy. Or loveable, depending on your capacity for anthromorphism. Or beautiful, depending on your aesthetic. Or perhaps a bit of all three at once, which explains the American public’s conflicted fascination with life-sized sex dolls and even the first impressions of doll users themselves.

All the pick-up guides I read (and I read a lot) focus on small talk. What to say, how to say it, how much to say, how little to reveal. But sometimes it’s easier to say nothing at all. Sometimes the best way to meet people is to leave language aside and just bark, mew, whimper, or pant. *Sniff, sniff*

Fight Club. Rugby. MMA. Let’s face it—we live in a society where it’s okay to be physically combative in a competition for superiority. But what happens when the fighting takes on an overtly kinky overtone? You’ve got what some refer to as Rough Body Play, or “Thug Play”—an old fashioned beatdown, not to the death, but until someone gets tired or cries “uncle.”

If you've ever filled out a BDSM checklist, chances are you've seen a question about whether you enjoy “serving as furniture.” Or you might have run across someone who gets hot when referred to as “it.” What's the allure of objectification? Let's take an objective (sorry) look at this very stationary fetish.

I ended up the collared pet of a woman I never met, never talked to on the phone, saw on webcam only a handful of times, but communicated with almost daily. It's not easy turning your life over to another person, and maybe not all that healthy. But its allure was as strong as any drug and I just couldn't resist.

Some of us have a fetish—a very particular fetish, that is—a fetish for latex and PVC, which is often associated with the realms of BDSM or S&M. But this particular fetish isn’t about BDSM. It’s just for ‘the look.’ Or, as renowned designer The Baroness puts it, “the other S&M: Stand and Model.”

When I heard about figging, I was fairly certain that I’d enjoy it. Figging is inserting a plug of fresh ginger root into your ass to enhance sexual pleasure. The ginger’s juices soak into your anal tissues, resulting in a burning sensation that is both arousing and excruciating. This practice took root in Victorian times—and you know those prim folks engaged in some very kinky pastimes.

White coats, stethoscopes, and nurses standing by? Ooh la la! A surprising number of folks get faint at the thought of a little medical porn, or medical equipment—and those are two very different kinks. The doctor will see you now, with five examinations of this very popular kink.

When faced with the task of investigating what goes on it the Japanese sex clubs, I never for a moment thought that it would be easy. But who’d have thought that it’d be so hard to catch a ride on ‘the touching trains’?

Of all the things crammed into pussies and asses through the ages, the fist maintains an underground popularity that's baffling from the outside. What is it about fisting that captures the minds (and hands) of its devotees? And why exactly is the whole country terrified of its own ass?

BDSM is rarely considered from anything other than its purest physical aspect; even rarer still is it presented as something other than a pagan or non-mainstream religious set of beliefs. But what happens when someone who has deep faith and belief in more traditional, conservative religion finds that their sexual interests don’t exactly fit in with that lifestyle?

Knives and sex with no felonies involved? It's possible. It can even be part of a fun Friday night. How do you mix sharp blades with tender bits? Here are five points (I'm sorry) for living on the edge (I'm so, so sorry) with erotic knife play.

Hello. My name is Newme…and I’m a closet kink. If you saw me walking down the street, you would probably think, preppy mom. I’m top to bottom J. Crew—cardigan, tee and jeans. Mother of four who home-schooled her kids, drove them to all their activities in a Honda Accord, worked hard for a living, helped my husband start his own business. Nothing special, just your typical person on the streets.

Or, if you prefer, urolagnia. Okay, maybe you aren’t familiar with the word, but I’ll bet you’ve heard of the fetish more commonly known as “water sports” or “golden showers.” Since researching this practice, I’ve found urolagnia dripping into my own sexual fantasies.

“The sweetest romantic comedy about S&M since, well...ever,” says Blackbook of the then-quirky, now-seminal film Secretary. Was it a massive step toward the mainstreaming of kinky culture or a lopsided portrayal that did more harm than good? Seven years later, people’s opinions remain sharply divided.

To paraphrase Andrew Vachss: A man who has a fetish will seek out women who he wouldn't normally find attractive if those women agree to and provide that particular fetish. In fact, that man might even prefer these women to those more attractive to him-more his “type”—if the ‘less’-attractive women provide him with his fetish more than women he's normally attracted to.

Jack and Bob meet at a kinky party; they go off into a corner where Jack gets whipped for an hour by Bob, wielding a big leather flogger. Yet, somehow, Jack is smiling at the end of it—and the noises he is making sound less like a man being tortured, and more like a man having sex. But why is he enjoying it? What is it about kinky pain that makes it different from regular pain?

Vanilla. To the epicurious, it’s one of the world’s most prized spices. In the bedroom, however...well, nobody seems to know what it is. Except that they either are or aren’t vanilla. The Beautiful Kind takes a look at vanilla...and in the process, bakes a very special cake...

Corsetry isn't just for Victoriana enthusiasts. The dramatic lines of a corseted figure is custom-made for the high-fashion fetishwear subset of BDSM culture, and the restrictive nature of the garment allows for all kinds of power-trippy fun. How did getting laced up into something restrictive and sexy get mixed up with kink? Read on for five lace-'em-ups about this deceptively beautiful fetish.

Have you ever found yourself confronted with a piece of latex fetishwear and wondered what that familiar tingle was all about? Chances are, your brain recognized the basic scent of condoms—ooh la la! So what is it that entices some to take latex out of the realm of Trojans and into the realm of full-on bodywear? Read on for five fabulous finds on why lovers love latex.

If you're looking for a way to try out kink that's free, easy, and likely to have good results, this one’s for you. Spanking as sexual titillation goes a lot further than the trope of the 1950s secretary getting a slap on the rump from a leering boss; in the world of kink today, spanking is safe, fun, and a lot less complicated than sex. Let's check out five rump-thumping tidbits about the spank.

It sounds pretty, but it feels mean. Bastinado is the practice of beating the soles of the feet. Why do it? You know the drill by now: if this is your sole exposure (sorry!) to bastinado, read on for five little piggies' worth of knowledge.

Why is that cutie on the bus wearing a dog collar? Why is that yuppie breathing heavy in the bridle aisle? Animal roleplay is a surprisingly popular form of kink, with puppies, kitties, and ponies the apparent favorites. What's the deal with human pets? Here, we'll take a look at five yips, whinnies, and meows about animal roleplay.

Is making someone hurt an act of cruelty or an act of love? If you said “either one, and sometimes both,” you get a gold star (and I’ll see you at the dungeon). If you didn’t, read on: Here come five points that might help explain why beating the shit out of someone can be the nicest thing anyone ever did.

Most people don't think of needles as sexual or erotic, but even the shallowest consideration yields some obvious reasons for that association: needles penetrate the body and afford access to bodily fluids in a way few activities outside of sexuality do. Welcome to five incisive (sorry) tidbits about the art of erotic needleplay.

For some of us, tickling is an activity we remember from summer camps and evenings with the family, either fondly or agonizingly (or both). For others, the enforced abandonment of control and reflexive, hysterical convulsing relates so closely to orgasmic feelings that tickling becomes sexualized.

Now, in my line of work, I’ve met a ProDomme or two before. In the Big Apple, S&M is NBD. Dommes came in all shapes and sizes, from a near-seven-foot Valkyrie—replete with a trademark tomato-red PVC catsuit straight out of a comic book—to a raven-haired, petite coquette who could, with her five-inch killer spike heels, make a grown man cry a lot more than just “Uncle.”

When the average person thinks of Charlotte, North Carolina, what most often springs to mind is Bible Belt, Banking, NASCAR and the PTL debacle. Debauchery? Not so much—well, except for the PTL debacle, but BDSM? You might be surprised...

For as long as robots have been a concept in the human imagination, we have been plagued by questions: Is advanced artificial intelligence possible? Can machines devoid of emotion truly understand the human condition? And...how awesome would robots be in bed?

Some people are born kinky, some achieve kinkiness, and some have kinkiness thrust upon them. Then, there are those of us who really like to have our kinky tied up and acquiescent…if that’s you, then read on.

Safewords are words or signals called out, usually during BDSM-related play, to either slow down or completely stop a scene. Citi Kittie gives us some deeper insight into the ins and outs of safewording – but take note: chances are that your boss will not respect your safeword when you use it to try and get out of that overdue spreadsheet.